Wednesday, August 10, 2011

"incidents of civil disorder"

The Guardian have an incident map up showing incidents of civil disorder in the country over the last week, which I suppose they could eventually turn into a commemorative wallchart.

The media coverage of the riots has focused on events that are understandably upsetting: out of control fires destroying people’s homes, and the destruction of owner-managed businesses. Doing so highlights real incidents of nihilistic criminality: the Guardian today has an article about a woman who works in Poundland who nearly died when her flat was burnt out. If we look at the incident map, it appears that the most common sort of incident is something less shocking: people robbing high street shops.